Abed Ismael
was born in Lattakia, Syria in 1963 and is a poet and translator, teaching American literature at Damascus University. He pursued postgraduate studies at New York University with a Fulbright Scholarship and has an MA and a PhD in American literature (1990-96). His publications include four collections of poetry and thirteen translations from English into Arabic of works by Walt Whitman, V S Naipaul, Jorge Luis Borges and others. He writes book reviews for literary magazines and newspapers including al-Hayat and al-Mustaqbal, and is a news editor for Syrian television.
Abed Ismael is one of four authors touring the UK in August with Banipal Live 2006. We take this occasion to republish Three Poems from Banipal 23, Summer last year, which he translated himself. These poems, and many more are also published in Unbuttoning the Violin, selected works by the authors on tour.
Contributor's Issues
Banipal No 23 Summer 2005
Banipal No 31 Spring 2008
Latest News
06/02/2012At a celebration of literary translation on Monday 6 February at Kings Place, Khaled Mattawa will receive the 2011 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.
[read more]03/02/2012
The Mosaic Rooms celebrates theartistic and poetic works of the great Syrian poet Adonis with talks and events from 3-8 February and an exhibition of Adonis's collages from 3 February until 30 March. The opening evening this Friday sees Adonis in conversation with Khaled Mattawa who is the winner of the 2011 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for his translation Adonis: Selected Poems.
[read more]16/01/2012
Khaled Mattawa wins the 2011 Saif Ghobash-Banipal Translation Prize for Adonis:Selected Poems
[read more]12/01/2012
Chair of IPAF Judges Georges Tarabichi announces the shortlist authors of the 2012 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
[read more]09/01/2012
Banipal Book Club's first book for discussion is The Tobacco Keeper by Ali Bader.
[read more]08/01/2012
Ibrahim Aslan, one of Egypt's best-loved authors, has died of heart failure at the age of 77.
[read more][read all news stories]